BSS, Dhaka :
Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha believes his side can rectify the batting errors by playing the five matches ahead of the T20 World Cup.
Top-order batting has been a massive cause of concern for Bangladesh of late, as it has undermined bowlers efforts in most of the matches.
Even though Bangladesh won the five-match T20 series against Zimbabwe by 4-1, their batting gives them a big headache. Bangladesh, however, will play a three-match T20 series against co-hosts the USA and then play two practice matches against India and the Netherlands before the tournament proper.
“We would love our top order to score all the time, but in that kind of scenario, it puts a lot of pressure on the other players, but I’m confident that we have five matches leading up to the first game. We will be able to get those areas of concern sorted,” Hathurusingha said on Wednesday.
“I would say this way: in some matches, we managed to get a good start, and in others, when we didn’t get a good start, we managed to finish well and strong. So, everybody got an opportunity to bat in the middle, and that was a positive. Yes, individually, some of the players would have loved to spend time in the middle, scoring runs, but in T20 cricket, anything can happen because it’s a very different game from the other two formats.”
Echoing the sentiment of captain Najmul Hossain Shanto, he said the preparation was perfect.
“Our preparation, I thought, was very good. We had a good camp in Chattogram and then we played five games against Zimbabwe. So, in those five games, we had the opportunity to give most of the players that we wanted to expose in certain situations, we were able to give them.
There’s a little bit of concern about some individual performances. But other than that I thought that was a good preparation. We got a lot out of it,” he remarked.
Star all-rounder Shakib said in an event said that playing against Zimbabwe is not ideal preparation for the World Cup but the head coach disagreed with it.
“I don’t think so. Playing matches is a good preparation. It’s a matter of any team because in T20 cricket, the game is as such that every game can be tricky. Some teams stronger than others. But preparation wise, I thought we had a good preparation playing against Zimbabwe.”
It was the second ICC event in which Hathurusingha is guiding the side after his reappointment. The first event, the ODI World Cup has been eventful as he was blamed for Tamim Iqbal’s omission from the World Cup team.